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OPTIMALITY THEORY IN ANALYZING BILINGUAL USE
Hungarian (right after the English opening line) “maximizes closeness”!*? and
expresses the mothers "true" concern for her son", both functions listed
under the principle of Solidarity.
Example [6]
1 A “I’ve tried to call several times, but your voicemail picks up
immediately.
2 Minden rendben? (‘Is everything all right?’) Call or e-mail me back.”
(cited by Bhatt and Bolonyai)'*
The mother opens her letter in English to make an informative statement
to her son. However, she switches to Hungarian in line 2 to express her
emotion, her concern for her son. In the mother-son relation, Hungarian is
the language of intimacy, and closeness. As such, the mother can express her
motherly concern for her more optimally in Hungarian than in English. The
switch to Hungarian serves more optimally the function of Solidarity than the
monolingual English candidate. It is also true that by switching to Hungarian,
the mother loses her authority, and control over the situation, as she exposes
her true motherly emotions in the language of shared intimacy with her son,
making her more vulnerable as a person. Therefore, the switch to Hungarian
violates the constraint of Power. When the mother switches back to English in
the next sentence to make a request to her son, she resumes her superior role,
the role of motherly control, indicating her regained authority.
Example [7] is taken from an exchange of emails between a bilingual
Hungarian-American professor and her Hungarian graduate student studying
in the US.
Example [7]
1 A “K6szi szépen, M. Ha esetleg át tudnád rendezni a funkciókat in
alphabetical order, az nagy segítség lenne."
"Ihanks very much, M. If you could maybe re-organize the functions
in alphabetical order that would be great.
(cited by Bhatt and Bolonyai and Bhatt)!”
8° Bhatt - Bolonyai, Code-switching and the optimal grammar of bilingual use, Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition, 531
40 Bhatt — Bolonyai, Ibid., 531
41 Bhatt - Bolonyai, Ibid., 531
12 Bhatt - Bolonyai, Ibid., 532